Thrash vs NWOBHM?

Halberd3

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Sep 7, 2016
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Do you guys have any preference for one of the other? To me it's something I've thought about all day. And from both scenes I noticed things.

NWOBHM
1. Took some influence from punk rock (sounds like around guitars and production)
2. A bit more melodic than thrash
3. Didn't really have a natural music enemy
4. Continuation of the first wave of heavy metal from their predecessors. Whom had more of a blues rock influence.
5. Varied a lot in what styles they went for.

But for things what I may call a downside or something that brought the NWOBHM down it'd be.
1. Could be boring at times. Based on tastes, like you may think it's never enough
2. It left as quick as it came. Which I think the New wave began in 1979 and ended in 1984 I think. Then Thrash took over.
3. Major record labels, style changes, and going underground. Which is where I think Saxon is at right. Underground. Raven and Diamond Head went onto a major record label, and the albums we got from them when they did. Were subpar. Canterbury and Stay Hard. In a way it kinda killed what NWOBHM was about. But I think there's ways it could've been made to work. And style change happened too. I don't really wanna go into too much detail there.

Thrash
1. Took a hell of a lot of influence from the American punk rock scene (Which I will not refer to as hardcore because that's just dumb).
2. More rhythmic, I hear a lot more of the bass following the drums then I do bass following the guitar and drums like I do with NWOBHM.
3. Had a natural enemy. Hair Metal, erghh. They were like the cobra and mongoose. Hated each other. Because one was a rip off and commercialization of true heavy metal. And the other was the spirit of the NWOBHM, after smoking meth and flying high with a vengeance.
4. Thrash can be repetitive. It can. Trust me, the drumming is usually what makes it sound the same. But it doesn't make it bad none the less

Downsides or so I think.
1. Burnout, some thrash metal bands had a habit of burning out after album number 2 or 3. It's raw energy, power, and speed. But I think at some point they used the best ideas first and that slightly killed them. That and they were inconsistent.
2. Repetition, as much as I said I was fine with it. It may have killed it off in a sense of them not really evolving their style or showing they can be diverse if they're only sticking to fast tempo drumming and thrash riffs with yelled vocals on social issues or death.
3. Lasted from 1983 to 1992. 9 years. What killed it afterwards is the rise of nu metal and alternative. No, better yet. Thrash committed suicide and saw revival around 2004. They wanted to show they can be different or jump on major label bandwagons for support. So they started doing alternative stuff. It alienated the fan base and killed what little support was left from around 1993-2003. But great, both of these genres are seeing revival.

So what do you think is better? And what do you prefer to listen to?
 
I tend to prefer the more moderate styles of metal.
I like it too. But I will say Thrash is technically demanding. Very heavy in the technical demand area. If more than your Classic Heavy Metal/NWOBHM? We'll never know until someone puts Tommy Iommi against Dave Mustaine. Or have them make musical masterpieces side by side.
 
Technically demanding music tends to turn me off, though I do appreciate some progressive metal bands with better-than-average playing and Yngwie Malmsteen.

By moderate what I mean is; heavy metal, doom metal and metal that borders on 70's style hard rock.
 
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The NWOBHM movement produced a few albums that I think are better than any thrash metal album and also significantly inspired early thrash metal acts. I would pick it for those reasons.
 
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Definitely Thrash Metal for me! It probably also has something to do with the fact that my third metal album I bought in 1984, which got me really into metal, was Metallica's "Ride the Lightning", after I had been blown away by "Fight Fire with Fire" when I first heard it on the "Monday Rock Show" on BFBS. My first two metal albums which I had bought just a few months before were "Dancin' on the Edge" and "Out for Blood" by Lita Ford, out of which I liked the former a lot better. Still, compared to these two, "Ride the Lightning" was like a new musical dimension. I loved the raw energy of this kind of music. Thrash Metal was definitely my favourite metal subgenre in the eighties and I still enjoy listening to many of the albums I bought way back then, though I also completely lost interest in later releases by most of my favourite Thrash Metal bands (usually after their third or fourth album).
 
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Definitely Thrash Metal for me! It probably also has something to do with the fact that my third metal album I bought in 1984, which got me really into metal, was Metallica's "Ride the Lightning", after I had been blown away by "Fight Fire with Fire" when I first heard it on the "Monday Rock Show" on BFBS. My first two metal albums which I had bought just a few months before were "Dancin' on the Edge" and "Out for Blood" by Lita Ford, out of which I liked the former a lot better. Still, compared to these two, "Ride the Lightning" was like a new musical dimension. I loved the raw energy of this kind of music. Thrash Metal was definitely my favourite metal subgenre in the eighties and I still enjoy listening to many of the albums I bought way back then, though I also completely lost interest in later releases by most of my favourite Thrash Metal bands (usually after their third or fourth album).
That's why I said Thrash kinda burns out after the third or second. A lot of people say Thrash metal is the purest metal genre out there. Or metal as it's supposed to be.
 
Iommi could play circles around Mustaine. Doomy, blazing circles.
The melodies are killer bro. Tommy could potentially destroy Mustaine there. But if weren't the case then Dave is running fiery thrash running circles around Iommi. But in a way I guess speed is not everything. That may be a small issue with thrash.
 
Potentially? How many Sabbath records have you heard? 2 (I would assume so, given you keep referring to him as "Tommy" for whatever reason)? Speed is nowhere close to everything in playing guitar, as Ritchie Blackmore has said, "The only thing more important than the notes themselves, are the pacing and spaces between them". Iommi can get fast and technical if necessary, the Dio era holding the greatest examples. Also, don't ever call me "bro".
Why what's wrong with bro? And I've listened to 12 of the albums. And I did not notice the typo there. I did it from my phone and it auto corrected to Tommy. The Dio era happened to be my favorite. Yes, during that era he did get a bit faster. But as what's said above speed isn't everything. I really didn't like Never Say Die! It felt weird and out of place for a Sabbath album at the end of the Ozzy era.
 
I like Tony Iommi more than Dave Mustaine, but Dave Mustaine is definitely a more technically accomplished guitarist.
Playing at blazing fast speed is certainly a feat. And the ability to be technically accomplished while doing it is also a feat. But I feel if you put him against Tony Iommi, Tony will probably smoke him and leave him in the dust.
 
Oh, I strongly prefer Tony Iommi. There's just no reason to have a debate over which one is a more technical musician when the answer is obvious. Unfortunately for Mustaine, being technically skilled isn't the only thing that matters in songwriting.
 
Oh, I strongly prefer Tony Iommi. There's just no reason to have a debate over which one is a more technical musician when the answer is obvious. Unfortunately for Mustaine, being technically skilled isn't the only thing that matters in songwriting.
Well you do have a point there. Especially in thrash metal.
 
It's infantine and obnoxious. My apologies then, you'd done it for several messages, so I was beginning to think you actually thought his name was Tommy. Autocorrect is certainly a pain that way. Never Say Die along with Technical Ecstasy is easily the most maligned album of Sabbath's golden years (basically all of the seventies and eighties). I still find it a quality album though, it's just not up to the standards of the previous albums, which, aside from Technical Ecstasy, were all stone cold classic masterpieces.
We both agree there man. I personally thought their first, Master of Reality, Vol.4, SBS, and Sabotage were their best. I loved Paranoid too, but to me it never really did it for me as much as the others. In regards to the NWOBHM, I think it had a perfect balance of melody and rhythm. Sometimes with thrash I hear too much rhythm to the point I feel it loses what would make it stand out.
 
You'll get no quarrel from me there, though I would add Paranoid to the batch of their best. And perhaps Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules as well. The appeal to thrash for me has always been it's technical acumen and it's unadulterated viciousness of soundscape. When I hear Steve Souza wail into The Toxic Waltz, or Kerry King jump into a demonic, rapid fire lead, it's just such a charge of power and vileness. But, yeah, the NWOBHM is a great balance of the rhythmic and melodic parts of it all, and it doesn't always shy away from being technical, just feast your eyes on Iron Maiden's early output.
Oh yes! Iron Maiden's early output makes my ears beg for more. And yes, Heaven and Hell, and Mob Rules were amazing, by any standard to me they were amazing. Even Dehumanizer was pretty damn good and just made me wonder why Dio didn't stay in Sabbath. To me, it felt he belonged there. Or both in his own band and in Sabbath. Thrash gets that viciousness from the American punk rock scene (aka Hardcore for dumbasses today, no offense if you like calling it that. To me I just saw it as Americanized punk rock. Never saw why it was called hardcore). Thrash is actually a punk rock term, and the drumming. That fast tempo 200bpm shit is actually derived from Punk rock. If have to suggest punk rock to you and the inspirations there. I say listen to Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Adolescents, F.E.A.R, Descendents, Agnostic Front, and Bad Brains to get the gist of where it comes from. I think Thrash is truly the second best Heavy Metal subgenre. But it's unappealing aspects lies in repetition to the point of no musical evolution and burnouts. I actually liked it when Megadeth started doing more traditional heavy metal. It showed some evolution and he doesn't have to thrash 24/7 to make good music.
 
Dio and Ozzy are my favorites when it comes to Sabbath's vocals, though I enjoyed Glenn Hughes' and Tony Martin's tenures as well. I'm aware of thrash's American hardcore punk lineage, from bands like Minor Threat and such. Not sure what you mean by Americanized punk rock seeing as punk rock started in America to begin with. I'm a fan of all those bands, and have been for years. Thrash comes in enough different packages that I'm fine with it, whether it's Sodom's black metal influenced blitzkrieg, Slayer's satanic hellstorm, Exodus' street gang cut throat rage, or Megadeth's technical thunder bomb, it's varied enough for me.
Hey I gotta ask. If this were a band name. What do you think it'd sound like it should be? Adrenaholic? And yeah I notice the style is variable. Personally I think slayer, Exodus, and Megadeth have the best style
 
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